BARUG News

Old News

April 2004

April's meeting will be held on Wednesday 28 April at the usual time and place. The primary topic of the evening will be the 2004 AGM. A Calling Notice was sent out by me at the start of April. I hope the formalities will not take more than about 20 minutes. Afterwards, Jack Evans will be demonstrating his Iyonix and how his digital camera can interface with it and the pictures manipulated in software.

During last month's presentation by the Vice Chairman on 'wireless networking',, the inexorable Law of Demonstrations took over and a demonstration which had worked first time at the Chairman's house the previous week - and had been working earlier that day - went into Sulk Mode and took a lot of cajoling before it finally condescended to work correctly. I suspect we did not convince many members of the benefits of using wireless networking! though I have to say that, once up and running, it works well for both the Vice-Chairman and me in our respective home set-ups.
(<VC>... last month's demo illustrated one side of networking quite well. Murphy's Law applies and often it is the cabling which causes the problems - this was the case in March. Happily, most hard-wired networks do eventually function without problems and, once they do, the cabling is left alone. This isn't the case when connecting a movable computer like a notebook (or, indeed, doing a demonstration!) and it is then that wireless networking can reduce the occurrence of problems by avoiding the need for cabling in mobile situations like internet access in the garden (you don't know you need it 'till its' gone). Anyway, is your hourglass half empty or half full? One more piece of modern technology worked on RISC OS machines...eventually! </VC>

I am still waiting for my RISC OS 4.39 ROMs, although the Treasurer advises he has taken delivery of his set. I understand that all 150 sets were sold and that the next order will require the firm commitment of about another 250 sets before it will be worthwhile. However, a new version of Select is due later this year, so soft-loading that version will still be an option for anyone who missed the chance for 'proper' ROMs.

I needed to buy a new CD writer recently, and settled on a Plextor IDE model. Initially I had problems with CD Burn at version 1.58x, but upgrading to 1.59 cured those. I bought my drive from Dabs and I now note that the price has come down to only £39. CD writers seem to be getting thin on the ground as combined DVD/CD models take over, so if you need a CD writer, now seems to be a good time to buy. Steffen Huber, the author of CD Burn, did state that he was working on a DVD version of CD Burn but would not be drawn on any timescale for release. I've burned about a dozen CDs to date and had no problems with any of them, so can recommend the Plextor (model PX-W5224TA). See:

http://www.dabs.com

Don't forget that the Wakefield Show is in mid-May. Anyone planning to go? Alas, it clashes with my wedding anniversary so I don't get an 'escape chit' that weekend...

See you next week!

Steve